When I was in 5th grade (I think), I was dropped off to spend the day with my friend Chuck. I was excited for several reasons: we were new to being good friends, I had never spent the day there, he had a pool, and because he had a super cute sister named Valerie and I was old enough to notice. We decided to go on an adventure in the woods beside his house. I was a very “outdoorsy” kid, and I convinced him that we could build a fort in the woods like I had done near my house.
We started by making a trail. With no access to a machete or an axe (thank God!), we used baseball bats to knock stuff out of the way. As we were walking and swinging our way through the woods we made an interesting discovery. From a low-lying branch, something very interesting was hanging. It looked like a football-sized growth made of paper-mâché hanging just at eye level. Even though I was used to being on the lookout for snakes and spiders, and was very familiar even with wasps, it just never crossed my mind that we should flee. I’d simply never seen a hornet’s nest before. Rather, what did cross my mind was that I could “Babe Ruth” this thing out of the way.
Fortunately for Chuck I said, “stand back”, and he had taken several steps back towards his house. I took my stance, and I swung. Fortunately also, having never played baseball, I tended to close my eyes and mouth when swinging a bat with all my might. The very next second a bazillion hornets were on my face, in my shirt, and covering my arms and legs. Screaming hysterically, we ran back towards Chuck’s house blazing a trail with our bodies. Crying loudly and flailing our arms and slapping at ourselves, we ended up on his front lawn.
His mother, watering flowers, and yelled for us to take off our shirts so she could hose us off. I, who had absorbed most of the hornet attack, enthusiastically ended up losing my shirt and my shorts and was rolling around on the ground in my underwear, crying like a baby, getting hosed down… and all in front of Valerie who had exited the house hearing all the commotion. Not sure which one stung more, the 50 hornet stings on my face, or the show I put on in front of Valerie. And worst, it was all my fault.
There is a sting to the difficulties of life. The strain of the day-to-day of career, marriage, childrearing, relationships, money, duty to God and family, planning for the future, forgetting the past, is all very hard. I say “welcome to adulting” a lot to my grown children, my co-workers, and even myself when the challenges of life show up full force. But sin “is full of surprises” as they say, and it is impossible to prepare for the unintended consequences.
Sometimes things unexpected and horrible happen and you or you or someone you love finds themselves so far down a terrible path that it’s impossible to fully understand. And the haunting question arises, “how did I get here?” The woman caught in adultery (John 8), standing naked and afraid before lustful and bloodthirsty men, knows this question all too well. Alone and accused, her shame on display to the world. Been there? Who didn’t accuse her in her vulnerable state? Who lifted her back up to dignity (Psalm 3:3)? Who can rightly command “go and sin no more” and give you the grace to accomplish it?
So beloved, when you find yourself in the worst possible scenario, when you find yourself or your life in shambles and it’s all your fault. With John 8 in mind, let your heart open to Christ like the Apostle Paul did. He captures well this exchange when he calls out for deliverance from his “body of death” (Romans 7:24). Exhaustedly he exclaims, “the things I hate, that’s what I do!” (Romans 7:15). And Paul’s conclusion must be our own, “I cannot, He can, and I believe I can through Him” (Philippians 4:13).
Brian Cook is a Cropwell native and a graduate of Pell City High School and Gadsden State Community College and studied music and history at Jacksonville State. He and his wife Hope have five children. A self-described “on-again, off-again bi-vocational part-time” Protestant minister for almost 20 years, Brian converted to Catholicism in April 2021. They attend Saint James Catholic Church in Gadsden. With no formal training (Acts 4:13), Brian is active in the Catechetical training of children and adults. His book “The Devotion to Christ” can be found on Amazon. He is available for speaking and teaching engagements in any parish, church, or group setting. He may be contacted at thedtc@protonmail.com or thedevotiontochrist@gmail.com.
